Nearly three months after the terror attack on the Pathankot air base in which seven securitymen were killed, a Pakistani team will arrive here on Sunday to survey the airbase and meet NIA officials to discuss the evidence collected so far.
“This is the first time that we are allowing a team from Pakistan to carry out an investigation like this, at such a location,” an official said, explaining the government’s decision to allow the five-member team, which will include ISI and Military Intelligence officials, into the sensitive installation. The team, led by chief of (Pakistani) Punjab Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) and Additional Inspector General of Police, Muhammad Tahir Rai, has been given 15-day visas to complete its investigations. It will travel to Pathankot under NIA escort on Monday.
In another instance of the government’s attempt to give the Pakistani team full access, official sources say the team is being facilitated without a letter rogatory (LR). An LR is a request sent by a country’s judicial officers for permission to take evidence in a foreign country.
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Three months after the terror attack on the Pathankot airbase, the Indian government in a first, will allow access to a team of Pakistani Military Intelligence and ISI to the sensitive military installation on Monday. The team which will arrive in New Delhi on Sunday, will be escorted to Pathankot by the NIA. An officer said, “We are hoping to conduct this case in a constructive and open manner.”
In another first, official sources said the Pakistani SIT is being facilitated without a Letter Rogatory (LR) having been sent to India. An LR is a formal request sent by a country’s judicial officers asking for permission to take evidence in a foreign country. “In that sense, this is a goodwill visit,” said an official, adding that without an LR being presented, the evidence collected by the Pakistani team would only be preliminary.
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Officials say India has already sent its LR to Pakistan, and hopes to receive an invitation to visit Pakistan to collect evidence soon. “All courtesies that are being extended are on the basis of reciprocity,” a source said.
The team, which is expected to travel to Pathankot on Monday by a special BSF helicopter, will be shown “the scene of the crime”, and allowed to interrogate non-military witnesses, but would not be allowed to speak to NSG, BSF or military personnel who were present during the attack..
They will also not be able to move freely around the base, and would be restricted to the area that the terrorists had been in, officials said.
Strict conditions
Sources told The Hindu the area would be “visually barricaded” and the team taken only to places on the air base that the NIA “deems fit”. The strictures have come after concerns were raised by officials, including from the Ministry of Defence, to the team gaining access to India’s forward base that abuts one of the army’s largest cantonments.
In January, Minister of Defence Manohar Parrikar had even ruled out letting the Pakistani team into the base, saying all the evidence on the culprits was in Pakistan.
Shortly after their arrival in India on Sunday, the Pakistani visitors will be given a “90 minute briefing” by NIA officials on the evidence collected so far, including the route of infiltration over the India-Pakistan border, identities of the killed militants, and the information that links them to Jaish-e-Mohammad facilitators in Pakistan.
Officials confirmed that Pakistani officials haven’t asked to meet NSA Ajit Doval, who has been named in the FIR filed in Pakistan as the informant on the case, as he had given details to his counterpart Lt Gen(Retd) Janjua.
“We have pinned the route taken by the terrorists on a map and will be presenting it before the JIT. The riverine route and the village through which they entered along Pakistan border have all been identified by us,” said the official.
As reported by The Hindu earlier, former Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh whose vehicle was snatched by the terrorists to reach the airbase on the intervening night of December 31-January 1 would be presented as a ‘witness,’ during the visit to Pathankot. It was on Mr. Singh’s complaint that an FIR was registered by the local police.